Zuri Allen Star “My Number One” – I’ve got news for you, lady: Your “Number One” is nothing but a huge, stinking pile of number two. If the banality of your lyrics isn’t enough to kill a human, your overdone, Cher-synthesized pop production will easily pound the final nail into the listener’s coffin. Barf. And that’s me being nice.

Ween “At The Cat’s Cradle, 1992” – Back in the day, I used to love me some Ween. In recent years they haven’t impressed me as much (“White Pepper” was mostly okay; “Quebec” was about half alright; “Shinola” had a hit or two; and “La Cucaracha” was void of anything substantial), but that doesn’t stop me from still throwing some old and classic Ween into my CD player regularly. So, needless to say, I was very excited when I heard about this most recent live release that dates back to 1992; a time when Ween was only two men, Dean and Gene Ween, and a cassette deck with pre-recorded bass and drum beats. This was a time before hour-long jam sessions and versions of “L.M.L.Y.P” that last longer than most sitcoms. An era long before they’d play the same song two, three or sometimes four times in a performance. Instead, this recording is just the two Ween brothers as they push through a 21-track set of material that is still new to everyone hearing it. You’ve got a lot of the old-school classics like “Big Jilm,” “The Goin’ Gets Tough From The Getgo” and “You Fucked Up,” as well as a few tracks that wouldn’t make it onto a studio album for years, like “Buckingham Green.” The CD is accompanied with a DVD, which features some live video performances of the duo in the early nineties, including a March 6th, 1992 performance from a small club in Columbus, Ohio called Stache’s. When I first moved to Columbus for college in 1994, I was able to catch a few performances at Stache’s before they tore it down and turned it into parking lot. Ween’s performance is sweet, but even sweeter was the nostalgia I felt watching them perform in a now-destroyed club from my youth. If you’re a Ween fan, more specifically a fan of their older stuff, pick this up. If you’re not a Ween fan, you probably really hate their early works, so don’t bother. But for Ween nerds like myself, this is a gem.